Sicily 2019

What we Learned about Sicilian Wines We have always enjoyed learning about the wines of any region we visit. When we went on our very first active vacation, a bicycling trip to the Dordogne region of France, we focused on the wine of that area -- Malbec. We discovered that we really liked Malbec in general, but that it also pairs perfectly with the rich food from that region. On our trips to Italy we have always enjoyed sampling the local wines from each region. Even the 'house wine' in Italy is special. Often the 'house wine' is not offered outside of a particular property or Agriturismo.  In Sicily, there are many great wines to try. We discovered 3 or 4 wines we really liked and we plan to continue enjoying those wines here in the States when we can find them. Here is a map of the wine regions of Sicily: Of the white wines we tried, we really liked the Inzolea, Cataratto and the Sicilian Chardonnays. One producer is well known outside of Italy and we w...

The 'Nitty Gritty' on where we cycled in Sicily Since we used Strava to track all of our daily rides, we have an incredible amount of detail on exactly where we rode, how fast, where we took pictures, etc. I thought it might be fun to share the actual Strava links to each day's ride. Note: you can click on any of these Strava maps to go to Strava.com and see a lot more detail on each ride. We ended up riding about 250 miles over six days. Of course, we consumed enough food and wine to make up for all calories burned and more! Sicily Day 1 Route   Sicily Day 2 Route Sicily Day 3 Route Sicily Day 4 Route Sicily Day 5 Route Sicily Day 6 Route

Our Sicily Cycling Adventure Begins! After spending one night in Palermo and one night in Cefalu, we headed for Catania for one night before meeting up with our Backroads cycling group the next morning. We took two trains from Cefalu to Catania -- the first was from Cefalu to Messina and the second was Messina to Catania. It was a bit challenging to understand exactly where our seats were in the first train, but we finally realized that nobody was sitting in their assigned seats anyway. On the second train there was some sort of kerfuffle going on and the Italian Polizia asked us for our passports. This was a bit unnerving and they didn't bring our passports back for about 20 minutes. After about 5 hours on the two trains we arrived in Catania and took a taxi to our hotel. Catania is the second largest city in Sicily and the downtown area felt much more upscale than Palermo with lots and lots of fancy shops. Since it was Saturday when we arrived, there were all sorts of specia...